Dr James Bennett

© 2016 Yvonne Jewkes, Ben Crewe and Jamie Bennett. All rights reserved. The second edition of the Handbook on Prisons provides a completely revised and updated collection of essays on a wide range of topics concerning prisons and imprisonment. Bringing together three of the leading prison scholars in the UK as editors, this new volume builds on the success of the first edition and reveals the range and depth of prison scholarship around the world. The Handbook contains chapters written not only by those who have established and developed prison research, but also features contributions from ex-prisoners, prison governors and ex-governors, prison inspectors and others who have worked with prisoners in a wide range of professional capacities. This second edition includes several completely new chapters on topics as diverse as prison design, technology in prisons, the high security estate, therapeutic communities, prisons and desistance, supermax and solitary confinement, plus a brand new section on international perspectives. The Handbook aims to convey the reality of imprisonment, and to reflect the main issues and debates surrounding prisons and prisoners, while also providing novel ways of thinking about familiar penal problems and enhancing our theoretical understanding of imprisonment. The Handbook on Prisons, Second edition is a key text for students taking courses in prisons, penology, criminal justice, criminology and related subjects, and is also an essential reference for academics and practitioners working in the prison service, or in related agencies, who need up-to-date knowledge of thinking on prisons and imprisonment.

© The editors and contributors 2008. The past decade has seen dramatic growth in every area of the prison enterprise. Yet our knowledge of the inner life of the prison remains limited. This book aims to redress this research gap by providing insight into various aspects of the daily life of prison staff. It provides a serious exploration of their work and, in doing so, will seek to draw attention to the variety, value and complexity of work within prisons. This book will provide practitioners, students and the general reader with a comprehensive and accessible guide to the contemporary issues and concerns facing prison staff.

© 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited. Purpose: There has been growing attention given to the concept of social climate as an element of prison practice. Research has indicated that more positive social climates can improve safety, psychological well-being, quality of life and contribute towards reduced reoffending. The purpose of this paper is to consider how the more positive social climates found in democratic therapeutic communities are constructed and how these practices can be replicated in other settings. Design/methodology/approach: This paper adopts a reflective practice approach. The intention is to look back at the concept of social climate in prisons and in particular within a prison-based democratic therapeutic community (DTC); draw upon research and theory in order to critically evaluate the nature and effectiveness of that social climate, and; draw wider lessons about the nurturing and maintenance of social climates that may have broader relevance in prisons. Findings: It is concluded that understanding and managing social climate is an essential aspect of improving the safety and effectiveness of prisons. Developing practices that enhance social climate requires looking beyond mainstream prison practices, towards niches such as specialist units and prisons, including DTCs and other therapeutic communities, and psychologically informed environments, as well as looking at practices in other settings including forensic mental health. Taking this wider perspective can be source of ideas and practice that could inform a profound culture change. Originality/value: The paper offers an attempt to understand the distinct practices that create a more positive social climate in DTCs and consider how elements of this could be exported to other prisons. This has implications for both penal theory and practice.

© 2017 Emerald Publishing Limited. Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to describe the work of HMP Grendon, the only prison in the UK to operate entirely as a series of democratic therapeutic communities and to summarise the research of its effectiveness. Design/methodology/approach-The paper is both descriptive, providing an overview of the work of a prison-based therapeutic community, and offers a literature review regarding evidence of effectiveness. Findings-The work of HMP Grendon has a wide range of positive benefits including reduced levels of disruption in prison, reduced self-harm, improved well-being, an environment that is experienced as more humane and reduced levels of reoffending. Originality/value-The work of HMP Grendon offers a well established and evidenced approach to managing men who have committed serious violent and sexually violent offences. It also promotes and embodies a progressive approach to managing prisons rooted in the welfare tradition.

© 2014 The Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. The growth of managerialism has led to the expansion of technologies of control and monitoring within prisons, including key performance targets and audits. A longer-standing method of prison regulation is provided by HM Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP). This article draws upon ethnographic research in order to consider how inspection is located in the context of managerialism. The article explores the structure of inspection and the micro-processes of practice and culture. It is argued that prison inspection provides a distinctive form of monitoring that is concerned with the lived experience of imprisonment rather than management systems and promotes values of humanity as opposed to those of economic rationality propagated by managerial practices.

© The Author(s) 2013. Race and prisons are deeply intertwined in England and Wales and in other countries. Minority groups not only are overrepresented but also experience the weight and pain of imprisonment more acutely. However, democratic therapeutic community prisons such as HMP Grendon in the United Kingdom offer an alternative to mainstream imprisonment, using communal living as a means to explore psychotherapeutic issues in a humane and effective way. The primary aim of this article is to explore the potential and limitations of prison-based therapeutic communities in responding to individual needs and the wider structural constraints that shape race and ethnicity in contemporary society. The article sets out the context in which these communities operate, in particular the ways in which both prisons and clinical practice are implicated in the flow of racialized power. The article goes on to discuss the features of therapeutic communities that can challenge, confront, disentangle, and reorder aspects of power, inequality, and identity. The article concludes that while therapeutic communities do not provide a utopian answer to the structural problems of race and power, they do offer the potential for a more sensitive internal environment and enable individuals to act with conscious and considered agency in their own lives.

This article examines the representation of release from prison in popular films. The article explores how prison films generally reflect and reinforce conventional views about crime and punishment, and in release from prison films this is seen in the predominant representation of violent, unreformed criminals being released from prisons to offend again. However, the article also identifies that images of reform and redemption appear in films and that this plays a role in maintaining a popular space for an alternative discourse. Two examples of reform-minded films about release from prison are compared and contrasted: Boy A (2007) and The Woodsman (2004). The article draws some conclusions about successful strategies of promoting penal reform through popular films and the difficulties of realizing this. © 2008, SAGE Publications. All rights reserved.

Kids Behind Bars (2005) is the latest documentary by Rex Bloomstein, who has been making prison films for over 30 years. This article argues that media representation of prisons plays a role in shaping public perceptions as most people have no direct access to prisons. It is argued that the function of prisons is contested in these representations; while some provide support for punitiveness, others present a case for reform. Using the analysis of Ericson et al. (1991), it is argued that these representations are concerned with aspects of social order: social hierarchy, morality, and procedural form. The article argues that Bloomstein's films have provided a voice to marginalized people and opened an alternative dialogue about the purpose of imprisonment, thus presenting challenges to established social hierarchy and morality. However, his films have generally presented hope in rehabilitation, thus reinforcing the procedural form. In Kids Behind Bars, the way Bloomstein has structured the film represents that the imprisonment of children has a detrimental impact, thus challenging the institution of child imprisonment. As such, this is Bloomstein's most radical prison film. The article concludes with an interview with Rex Bloomstein, where he discusses this film. © 2006 SAGE Publications.